A Little Bit of Fluff

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A Little Bit of Fluff
Directed by	Wheeler Dryden
Written by	Jess Robbins
Starring	Syd Chaplin Betty Balfour
Cinematography	René Guissart George Pocknall
Distributed by	Wardour Films (UK) MGM (USA)
Release date(s)	May 1928 (UK)
Country	United Kingdom
Language	silent film English intertitles
IMDb profile

A Little Bit of Fluff a.k.a. Skirts is a comedy genre silent film, filmed in England in 1928, and directed by Wheeler Dryden and Jesse Robbins. It is based on the farce of the same title by Walter W. Ellis, which premiered at the Criterion Theatre, London, on October 27, 1915, featuring Ernest Thesiger as Bertram Tully. This film version is predated by a 1919 effort directed by Kenelm Foss. In that adaptation, Thesiger reprised his role as Tully, as did Alfred Drayton (Dr. Bigland) and Stanley Lathbury (Nixon Trippett). The 1928 film features Syd Chaplin, half-brother to both Charlie Chaplin and director Wheeler Dryden, as Tully.

[edit] Synopsis

The misadventures of a young newly-wed man (Chaplin) and an exotic dancer (Balfour), the titular "little bit of fluff." Tully (Chaplin), an effete and completely mother-in-law-dominated new husband becomes unwittingly involved in boxer Hudson's plot to wrest his girlfriend's (Balfour's) $5000 necklace from her in order to pay his gambling debts. Living next door to Maggie, the exotic dancer, Tully is first introduced to her only because his mother-in-law demands that he go next door and make the noise cease--noise from one of Maggie's hedonist parties. Purely by coincidence, then, that evening Tully accompanies his other neighbor, John Ayres, to the club at which Maggie performs as a singer/dancer (The Little Bit of Fluff), his wife and MIL having left town to visit aunty. It is at this club that Tully accidentally acquires the necklace and so, the rest of the farce is taken up with scenes of mistaken identities, moments of being in the wrong places at the wrong times, misunderstandings with wives, stepmothers, and boxer boyfriends, etc. In the end, Hudson is arrested for trying to steal the necklace back from Tully's apartment and all falls back into order--except that Tully has NOT managed to lose his mother-in-law along the way. This film is highlighted by intricate gags, including using a pekinese puppy to moisten stamps, a fantastic spinning headstand by Chaplin, and, perhaps, marred a bit by a lack of plot and an unbearably long scene at the nightclub in which Chaplin mistakes a female "little person" for a little girl. This film definitely follows along well from the sort of character Chaplin created in his Warner Brothers contract--a winning one for him.